Winter's Endings
by Coyote Laughs
Summary: A chance encounter with a grieving widower leaves Freddie and Sam questioning all their preconceptions about relationships.


**Author's Note: This is set after the events in _A Christmas Truce_. Both are stand alone, and do not have to be read as a whole, but I believe that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Enjoy! And I don't own iCarly.**

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**Winter's Ending**

A fresh new layer of snow covered the ground in the park. Two teens, pinkies entwined, walked along the path together, quietly enjoying each others company. Two sets of ear phones snaked from their ears, finally joining together at a splitter attached to a mutually shared PearPhone. The path eventually took them pass the duck pond, which they had affectionately renamed the Truce Pond. They had managed to keep the truce for the last four weeks, the whole of the holiday season, and in that time discovered a new appreciation for the other.

Instead of fighting and bickering, the two now played a new game, one choosing a song, then the other would choose the next. Each song chosen peeled back a layer of depth to the teens. She, not surprisingly, loved punk rock, feeling an affinity for such greats as Joan Jett and Patti Smith, but she also loved Sarah McLachlan and Willie Nelson. He played her songs not only by Diana Krall and Edith Piath, but also by the Airborne Toxic Event and Morcheeba. Norah Jones turned out to be a mutual favorite, as did Journey.

As they walked and listened to the music, they spied a tall older man, clutching a bouquet of blood red roses, gazing out with empty eyes across the duck pond. The two were struck by an aura of sadness that hung about the older gentleman. Not willing to interrupt the gentleman in his reverie, the two moved to walk pass him. As they were walking pass, Freddie recognized him as one of the other tenants from Bushwell's. His mind racing, he finally managed to place a name with the face. Mr Leblanc, from 6C. A history teacher at one of the other high schools in Seattle, he was pleasant enough to talk to whenever they had the occasion to. And then as minds often do, he connected another fact, Mr Leblanc was recently a widower. He remembered his mom telling him that Mrs Leblanc had passed away, but he had conveniently forgotten it as teens do with all things concerning death.

Looking back at Mr Leblanc, Freddie noticed tears softly falling from the man's eyes. His conscious finally getting the best of him, he halted and looked over at his companion. Compassionate brown eyes met knowing blue eyes, and she smiled softly at him. Removing headphones and unhooking pinkies, he stepped closer to the gentleman and gently said, "Mr Leblanc, my condolences. Is there anything we can do?"

Shaking his head abruptly, the older gent finally realized that he wasn't alone. He looked over and saw the two teens, a brown headed, brown eyed boy and a blonde, blue eyed girl. Smiling sadly, he softly said, "not unless ya'll have something to heal a broken soul..." He walked over to a nearby park bench and sat down wearily. He looked back over, "Hello Freddie... Miss..." He paused for a moment, "I think I would like to talk to somebody though," and he motioned them over to the bench.

The teens looked at each other, and an understanding was reached without a word being said. They both walked over to bench, and in that short amount of time and distance, their pinkies became entwined once again.

The gentleman smiled softly as he caught the gesture and introduced himself to the girl. "I'm Christian Leblanc, and I'm sorry to bring my grief to such a beautiful place..."

The girl finally spoke, "I'm Sam Puckett." She looked him up and down, sizing him up. Luxurious thick black hair, streaked with grey graced a bespectacled face, while unused laugh lines crinkled from the corner of his sad hazel eyes.

"Ah, so you're the infamous Sam Puckett. You're nothing like I envisioned though...," he laughed wryly. "I thought you'd be taller." He quickly held his hands up when he saw her eyes tighten up and her hands close into fists. "The teachers at your school love to talk about you. They always win the 'we have the worst student' contests." He grins over at her. "Did you really beat up the whole football team because one of them made fun of your hair style?"

She shook her long blonde locks. "Nope, only the bench and the secondary. I left the offensive and defensive lines alone because we really needed to win the next couple of games..."

"And the wrestling team? Itching powder in all their jock straps?"

"Well, they deserved it. They were making fun of professional wrestling. Mama likes her pro wrestling!" She grinned wildly as she thought about that hilarious afternoon.

He laughed softly. "yep, nothing at all like I envisioned." He looked down at the roses clutched in his hands. "Thank you for the laugh. I haven't laughed in a while..."

Freddie and Sam looked at each in an uncomfortable silence. He saw the look passed between the two and said, "Isabella," he choked a bit as he said the name, "she was by wife, my beloved wife. Not sure how much you know Freddie, but she had been sick for a long time. Brain tumor. Inoperable. They caught it too late." His hands clenched angrily at the thought.

"She was the love of my life, of that I'm certain. You remind me a lot of her Sam. So full of life. So strong." He smiled wistfully to himself. "We were high school sweethearts, and married shortly after graduation. She was half of my soul, and the best half. She made everything worthwhile." Sighing softly, he continued. "Thirty years next May. We would have been married thirty years. But we had known each other since we were kids in middle school. I've known her for most of my years."

"At the end, I had to be strong for her. My strength was hers, and I couldn't let her down. But she suffered for so long, in many hours of pain. And now, my love is gone. And my suffering begins." He closes his eyes. "I'm just so tired. Would it be wrong if I surrendered all the joy in my life?" He looked up over at the two with pleading eyes. "Would it be wrong if I turned my face from the light, and went with her tonight?"

The two teens looked stunned at the last question. They looked at each other, uncertainty reflected in their eyes. Surprisingly, it was Sam who spoke up next. "Mr Leblanc, you must have loved your wife very much." He nodded mutely at her statement. "Well, you give us hope. Me and Freddie, we don't have many examples of good relationships to look to, and if you've found that one true love, well, that must mean it really IS out there, and that gives us hope. If the two of us can have hope, then you can have it too."

Christian looked up, his hazel eyes catching Sam's blue ones. "I was lucky Sam. I don't think I'm going to get lucky again. I don't know if I can live without her. She's so much a part of me."

"You can. I know it sound trite, but your wife would have wanted you to carry on," she said simply.

He looked down at the bouquet of roses in his hands. Smiling gently at Sam, he said, "I was going to leave these here, for Isabella. This was our favorite place, but I think she would have wanted you to have them instead." He gently placed the roses into her hands. "Thank you both. I've taken enough of your time. I know ya'll have better things to do than listen to an old man ramble on." He smiled at the both of them, "Freddie, always a pleasure. And Sam, so nice to finally meet the living legend herself."

Before standing up, he leaned over and whispered to Freddie, loud enough for Sam to hear, "Hold on to her, she's a special one..."

Freddie had a shocked look on his face, a denial coming easily to his lips. But then he sneaked a look over at Sam, at her blushing face, and said instead, "yeah, she's not like other girls..."

Christian nodded, and started down the path the two teens had just come down. He stopped when he heard his name being called out.

"Mr Leblanc," Sam said as she hurried down the path. She smiled brilliantly up at him and enfolded him in a hug. "Thank you for the flowers, and for the other thing..."

A genuine smiled graced his face, the first in a long while. "You're welcome Sam. You two look good together."

She walked back to Freddie, a slight blush showing on her face. Putting the ear phones back in, she nudged the boy next to her. Grinning, he pressed Play on the PearPhone and the two continued on their path. Looking down at the blonde, he offered his pinkie to her. Looking up, she shook her head no, and took his whole hand in hers instead, all their fingers entwined now. That same slow smile, first seen weeks ago in the same place, played across both their faces.

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Freddie sat working on his laptop on his bed, the soft singing of Sarah McLachlan playing in the background. He was conducting routine maintenance on the iCarly server when he heard a loud knocking coming from the front door of the apartment. It stopped just as suddenly, and Freddie assumed that his mother had seen to it. The next thing he knew, his bedroom door flew open and a distraught Sam rushed inside, a newspaper clutched tightly in one hand. "Sam, what's wrong," he asked as he reached over and muted the volume on his computer.

She paced along the floor of his room while Freddie watched her apprehensively. Sighing, she sat down next to him on his bed. "He killed himself. He really did it."

"Who?"

In reply, all she did was hand him the paper. He quickly skimmed the page, before finding the information he was looking for.

_Christian Patrick Leblanc_

_March 19, 1962 – January 18, 2011_

"Why'd he do it? I thought he had finally come around..."

Freddie shrugged helplessly at Sam. "Most long-term spouses tend to die within a year of each other, whether from suicide or just by giving up the will to live." He closed his eyes, as if accessing a memory, then opened them, looking right into Sam's ocean blue eyes. "There was a 1940's movie star, Charles Boyer, who in all the tabloids was attached to all the most eligible leading ladies of the time. But he had one true love, his wife of 44 years. She died of cancer, and two days later, he overdosed on pills. He said that he didn't know what to do without her, and just didn't want to live anymore." He sighs softly. "That kind of love scares me, yet it's the kind that I want. To truly love someone with all your heart..."

"Why do you want that? Why would you want to lose yourself in another person," she asked, a puzzled look on her face.

"Because I believe that the whole would be greater than the sum of the two part. Because I'd like to be a part of something special like that." He looked down at his shoes. "And because now I have hope..." He looked over at Sam, and a sigh escaped his lips. "Mr Leblanc couldn't live without his wife. I can't condone what he did, and I have no right to say that I understand why he did it. But what I do know is that he will be missed..."

"Damn it Freddie," she exclaimed and the dam that had been holding back her tears finally broke. She buried her head in his chest, tears freely staining his shirt.

He gently lifted Sam's face up from his chest, his brown eyes looking down at her blue ones. "What's wrong?"

Eyes shimmering with tears, she answers, "I.. I was ok being angry at him, for giving up. But now, I can't be angry... and..."

Freddie gently ran his fingers through her hair. "It's ok Sam. You don't have to talk about it." He smiles sadly down at her. "We can just sit here, ok?" Wrapping his arms around Sam, he held her close. A deep sadness welled up in his chest, and soon his own tears were falling free, mingling with Sam's.

"Ok," said Sam in a meek voice, one that Freddie had never heard before. She burrowed her way deeper into Freddie, seeking to hide herself from the world in his arms.

Wondering why all the talking had stopped, Mrs Benson came to her son's bedroom door, expecting the worst. She took one look at a crying Sam and the newspaper now lying on the floor, and knew instantly what had happened. She caught her son's eyes and mouthed silently to him, "I'm proud of you, Freddie, and I love you." With that, she shut the door and the two, one brown haired and the other blonde, sat there for a long time, sharing their grief and taking silent comfort in each other.

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Near the Truce Pond, root tendrils had begun to sprout from a rose bush seed, digging into the finally fertile soil. There the seed rested, patiently waiting for winter's ending.


End file.
